The technical field is the storage of data in networked computer systems.
Internet applications may require the storage of extremely large quantities of data. One architecture in use today to support this storage problem is a disk farm. A disk farm may be a large number of servers, having thousands of linked storage devices for storing digital data. A representative storage device is an optical disk. The disk farm may be coupled to data collection and processing systems that collect data over the Internet, possibly process the data to convert the data into a format suitable for storage, and then store the data in the disk farm. U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,068 to Cook describes a disk farm that is used to store hundreds of thousands of sound recordings.
While disk farms may provide the required digital data storage capacity, such disk farms may be expensive to build and maintain, and unless the actual storage of digital data is close to the capacity of the disk farm, the excess capacity may represent a significant waste of resources. Disk farms may also run out of storage capacity, and adding additional storage is expensive. Disk farms require some form of storage management to ensure that files are properly allocated to storage devices. This storage management function requires additional programming. Finally, transfer of large data files over a network such as the Internet may impose transmission delays when the network bandwidth is exceeded. In summary, disk farms do not represent a flexible storage solution for storing data for Internet-related applications.
A system and a method provides for flexible storage of digital data in a networked-computer system by unifying data storage. The system and method allow an e-application operating at a network site, such as an Internet Web site, to utilize distributed storage devices that reside at remote client locations for storing data resulting from execution of the e-application. In an embodiment, the system includes a storage proxy/registry that attempts to xe2x80x9cdiscoverxe2x80x9d storage at the e-application site or at the remote client locations. The storage proxy/registry may use various routines and algorithms to determine where data should be stored. Alternatively, the system may use a default storage location. In this alternative, the system may require the remote client location to store all or part of the data associated with the e-application.
The storage proxy/registry also serves to register a particular client with the system 10 so that data files are properly and securely accessed only by the intended client.